


The Music of the Night

by Zeal_Ambition_Steel



Category: Interview With the Vampire (1994), Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:35:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeal_Ambition_Steel/pseuds/Zeal_Ambition_Steel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was something godlike about Lestat sometimes. It was in those times that Louis stopped hurting enough to listen, and what he heard was the music of Lestat's one true talent—killing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Music of the Night

I have told you my tale, and Lestat has given you his. You do not know Lestat as he is now, a prowling shadow splayed across your streets. He slinks from house to house in his jean jacket and his jean pants, hands tucked into ratty pockets, and he does not have the decency to don even a shirt. His morals are as ermined as ever, and I expect that that will never change. 

Nevertheless, he expects me to change. 

 

"Louis," he addresses me, hand searching for a purchase on my tailored coat, "you do not quite appreciate your situation, so you must forgive my frankness." Sinister lips curl like his soft and thick blond hair. He has always looked the part of the angel, which is, of course, why he is so shocking a devil. Everything about him clashes with what exists. "It has been two centuries since you underwent the change. It is time that you listened to the music of the night."

 

"Where might one find this music?" I inquire. Lestat chuckles. 

 

"It is there if only you listen."

 

\---

 

Lestat's penchant for music has bled through the centuries. There was the harpsichord, there was the violin, there was the electric guitar and there was the piano. What I find particularly perplexing is his continued fascination with the subject even after awakening Akasha from her slumber at Enkil's marble side. One would think that such an encounter would deem the subject hideous, but no, not for Lestat. He is beyond expectation. Even Armand says as much. 

 

"Let him be," Armand often murmurs into my hair, "he is a force of nature, but he is our force of nature." Armand would know. After reading Lestat's book, there is little about him that can be said to be containable. Lestat was a man of his time, the Age of Reason, when philosophy exploded into the Parisian streets and Les Innocentes was a dark playground for a lonely fledgling vampire. I still find it trite that it was Lestat who founded the Theatre of the Vampires and it was I who burnt it to the ground. I wonder how Lestat looked as he pranced about the stage, terrifying slews of humans at the behest of Nikki's violin's inferno of staccato notes and shrieks, revealing Lestat to the world. Armand says it was grotesquely beautiful, and so I am inclined to believe him. 

 

\---

 

Claudia used to love to listen to the melodies Lestat coaxed from the harpsichord like moans from the women he drank from. His fingers would dance across the keys, and Claudia would stand by him, head tilted adoringly. I would be perched on my chair, a book resting between my hands.

 

"Louis, come join us!" Lestat would exclaim, but I would only shake my head, watching the two in their merriment, their blond curls so alike, the sparkling mischief in their blue eyes so alike. They were kin, the two of them, and as Claudia began to twirl about the lush carpeting of our fine New Orleans home, cherub laughter illuminating her alabaster countenance, I felt something akin to sadness. 

 

When they left me alone to hunt, there were no screams, only breathy moans escaping their victims, music to Lestat's ears.

 

\---

 

Lestat's flair for evil is truly exquisite, I think, as I watch him sink his fangs into the delectably exposed neck of a brute of a man. Lestat holds the man still like a babe in his arms, and the man is screaming into the night. As is always the case, no one is suicidal enough to seek out the source of the shrill cries in the pitch black night. Lestat allows the man's emptied corpse to slump onto the boardwalk. 

 

"Drink, Louis," he cajoles me. I stare down at Lestat's vanquished prey who once considered himself a predator, watch the rapid rising and sinking of his fleshy chest. 

 

"No," I decide, returning my gaze to Lestat. Lestat chuckles and shakes his head. 

 

"Rats will not satisfy you for long," he taunts me, lifting the husk of a man with one arm and finishing his meal before he hurls the man into the curling waves beneath the boardwalk. He licks the blood off his lips. "You shall see."

 

"Was he evil?" I inquire.

 

"Very," says Lestat, smiling. "Even in death his evil leaves a particularly bitter aftertaste. Ah, but I cannot be so critical. Naughty children must be punished." My mind unbidden recalls Claudia.

 

"I would prefer they be neglected," I remark carefully. Lestat unleashes a bark of a laugh, a crass foil to his usual booming, rich one.

 

"I'm sure you would," he drawls. "It is such a misfortune that I cannot refrain from touching the world around me, punishing the unseemly like God cannot." 

 

"There is strength in restraint," I comment. "And God shows it well."

 

"God is rather neglectful these days, isn't he?" Lestat responds with all the cheek of a defiant child, and I feel his words cut straight through me. I remain silent, and Lestat strides forward without hesitance, humming a triumphant tune, the waves lapping at the side of the boardwalk. I can smell Lestat's victim even as I follow. 

 

\---

 

Lestat seems determined to live unimpeded by guilt or by the tragic frown that he claims is always attached to my face. We are tragic comic masks, Lestat and I, and we bring audiences to standing ovations, to hunched-over laughter, to tear-ridden sadness. We dance about each other in the night, Lestat tempting me like the devil he is with the strong pull of blood while I retreat from his advances, from the possibility that I too might lose myself in the thrall of the kill. I take no pleasure when I succumb to his persuasions and rip into the throats of the guilty. Lestat watches with a gleeful turn of his lips. At least one of us enjoys the rare occasion in which I partake of the wine of humanity, strong and rich in flavor. Human blood does not quite settle me these days, as I am accustomed to the less heady blood of animals. Where Lestat has extravagant tastes, mine are more modest. Extravagance, like so many of Lestat's preferences, is such a powerful sin. 

 

God, in his indiscriminate hand, has not seen fit to smite Lestat just yet. Perhaps he enjoys Lestat's music too much to destroy him while he dances. I enjoy Lestat too much to destroy him while he dances. I remember what Lestat told me once: "Evil is a point of view. God kills indiscriminately and so shall we. For no creatures under God are as we are, none so like him as ourselves." Lestat fancies himself a god. After all he has endured, after seeing his smile remain as unrelenting as the tide, I find that I can no longer argue.


End file.
